Of Wits and Woes
by V-for-Caesar
Summary: Home was everything in 221B Baker Street: the skull, the blood-boiling concertos at three in the morning, the amiable silence he and Sherlock sometimes shared when they sat to watch crap telly after a wild goose chase. Home was Sherlock Holmes. And Sherlock is gone. Sherlock/John .


ELOGIUM (eulogy)

* * *

-o-

_"Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and someday,_

_if we're very lucky, he might even be a good one."_

-o-

The CCTV cameras steer around the tall building of St. Barts Hospital. There are many others situated around the streets; some above the roof of the building and many others surrounding it.

A man is watching the roof of St Barts from the camera feed in a compact room, and his eyes dart to another screen; to the building opposite it, where the army doctor is looking confusedly around him as he speaks into his phone. He can see panic rising across the good doctor's face, wiping out every military-earned restraint against his emotional expressions.

The doctor is thankfully oblivious to the sniper above him, in the building right behind him, and the man watching these scenarios unfold takes a small, nervous breath that defies his very character. He turns dark eyes back to the small screen showing the rooftop of St. Barts Hospital, and a section of it is painted in blood, as his brother's truest archenemy lays there on the floor, lifeless.

He cannot help but mutter aimlessly, as his fingers clench tightly to the hilt of his umbrella.

"Brother, what are we doing?"

-o-

Panic rises with an exponential growth that John Watson never knew to be capable, as his eyes lay on his best friend's- who is tear-filled and looks shaky and doubtful in himself. Sherlock stands on the rooftop of St. Barts and speaks to him over the phone.

He had called himself a fake; a fake genius, but John knows much better than the lot of them, who took this ridiculous information in stride and rode along with the antics of the media and Jim Moriarty.

And worse, he has a sinking understanding of what Sherlock Holmes is about to do, as he speaks of creating Moriarty for his own purposes.

"Okay, shut up Sherlock, shut up. The first time we met-" He chokes on his own voice, shocked by the sudden weakness gathering in his throat, but he wills the sounds to surface again.

"-the first time we met, you knew all about my sister, right?" John says rather than asks; it is not a question. He let his eyes speak more than his words can, because he does not want to overwhelm Sherlock, but he still wants him to see.

_My colleague._

_My partner._

_My best friend._

_I trust you Sherlock. So, so much. Don't- please don't do this to me._

He continues to look at his best friend, who is so far from his reach- even though his voice is being transmitted right into the device in his hand. John catches Sherlock's pained expression before he has a chance to mask it, and there is a small, weak smile that speaks volumes of defeat that John has never seen on his friend's face before.

The device that gives John the illusion of a closed distance whispers into John's ear-

"Nobody could be that clever."

And John wants to stop time, or slow it, at the least. He wants to do so in order for it to take nanoseconds for him to run up the stairs to the rooftop, shake Sherlock out of this- this thing- and yell continuously to his face 'You could!' until he finally gets it.

But John is a rational man, and he knows that such thoughts are impossible to carry out, so he says it softly into his phone instead.

-o-

Sherlock Holmes cannot help but hesitate as his eyes hold John, while the painfully slow minutes pass by. John's reactions, and the distance from the rooftop to the ground below are enough to lengthen his hesitation.

He does not want his friend to see this, but he has to ensure that he does.

Sherlock's right finger's twitch against the end of his palm as he strives to hold onto calm and every part of himself, but he feels the strings of his calm loosening; he feels himself barely able to reach back for it.

His gaze gradually leaves John as he falls silent over the phone, and his eyes dart quickly at the windows above his friend, to find the sniper indeed still hiding in the empty room in the building behind John, his gun well placed- waiting for Sherlock to complete his end of the transaction with well attuned patience.

Sherlock closes his eyes sharply, and inhales a quick breath. This needs to work. He could not afford to be a second late in this plan. He could not afford to lose them all, especially John.

Where were Mycroft's men?

As if in answer, his phone chimes once against his ear, and then a second time. Sherlock bites his cheek to prevent the obvious relief coursing through his veins from surfacing all across his face. His vision sweeps the empty room to see a bleary shadow lurking behind the assassin meant for John.

His expression sets back to its sorrowful place, and his eyes once again hold John's in a haunting lock-down as he speaks quietly.

"This phone call, it's...it's my note. That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note..."

John's faltering voice drags him into a world of refreshed pain as he answers.

"Leave a note when?"

Sherlock sighs, a small sail of breath to prepare himself for the impact of everything to come.

"Goodbye John."

And then he is falling.

-o-

Mycroft knows what to expect as he watches his brother mouth his last words to the army doctor. But it does not stop his lips from curling downwards; his face rigid with a feeling akin to shock. His knuckles are white from his grip against the hilt of his umbrella, as he gazes at the screen that feeds him an image of his brother falling to the pavement.

He continues to stare at the screen, and he sees John Watson reaching for Sherlock in a daze. The good doctor's words and strides are equally uncoordinated, and the sheer grief already clouding the army doctor brings forth a sense of guilt only visited the last time he spoke with John Watson.

_"So one big lie...Sherlock's a fraud, and people will swallow it because the rest of it is true. Moriarty wanted Sherlock destroyed, right, and you have given him the perfect ammunition."_

Mycroft takes his leave from the screen-room, closing the door silently behind him. This is after all, the last idle chapter in these events for him.

-o-

Sherlock Holmes is buried a day and half later. It is on a grey, weeping morning, and the skies seem to be the only ones mourning apart from a few others – Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Mycroft, Molly- and a handful of supporters who still were unconvinced by the tales of the media, and were able to show honest grief over the loss of a great man.

John stands to the farthest end of the gathering, holding up an umbrella for himself and Mrs Hudson. His face is taut with burning anger and defeat, and his fingers curl into a soft hold on the fragile ones of his landlady.

The funeral is carried out in a bout of silence, and John finds that he can hardly stand it- the silence. Sherlock, the man was a storm, a static of dramatic, endless noise, even in his times of silence that stretched for days on end. To be reduced to this...John never fathomed this possibility.

There is no priest, Mycroft saw to that. John knows as much as Mycroft does that Sherlock would probably have spat at anyone who broached the idea anyway.

No one gives a eulogy either. The stage stands in the midst of everyone untouched. Mycroft does not dare it, for he never had many positive exchanges with Sherlock in life that John was privy to, and to give one in his death would be an unforgivable act of hypocrisy.

D.I Lestrade remains in the same spot throughout the entire funeral ceremony. His head is bowed, and his eyes seem unseeing, and John almost believes he would have pitied the man if his anger was not so freshly inbred in him. Molly stands beside Lestrade with her lips shaking, and her doe eyes wide.

As the coffin begins to be lowered to the ground, Mrs Hudson gives out a loud gasp that finally shakes everyone out of their duty to remain as stoic as possible. John can hear a few distant sobs surfacing, as his landlady crashes her face into his arms and cries her heart out.

His fingers grip tighter on hers and he whispers, "I know, Mrs Hudson. I know" and she mutters fairly intelligible mixtures of praises and appraisals alike about their friend.

His best friend.

Sherlock.

His jaw tightens as he watches the earth being covered; his nerves burn. He realizes that even as the silence stretches, he cannot find his voice to break it as he desperately wants to.

His nerves burn against his skin and his eyes, but he does not cry.

The funeral ceremony comes to an end and people slowly begin to leave one after the other, with handkerchiefs held in their hands or to their eyes. He reasons that his hands have not touched his face yet.

He knows what this is- that the reality in which Sherlock, the absolutely infuriating, blood-pressure rising, amazing genius of a man is no more, has not quite surfaced yet.

He sees himself in an almost neutral ground, where his knowledge of Sherlock's suicide is sustained, but the edges of pain and grief are introduced to him patiently at first. He does not want to be here -on this field where Sherlock lies, when the full force of his grief finally hits him. He does not know what he would do with himself when he is finally kicked out carelessly from the nurturing limbo he finds himself stuck in.

His eyes meet Mycroft's, who looks hard edged with his usual business-like aura, but he does not miss the tired look on the older Holmes's face. Mycroft, ever up for a challenge it seems, continues to look at him while people shuffled past.

But for the first time, Mycroft is the first to look away.

John frowns, and gathers Mrs Hudson closer to him, as she touches the handkerchief to her eyes. He looks away from Mycroft, and to his landlady.

"Let's go home, Mrs Hudson".

She looks at him, and seems to see something that he doesn't, for she gazes at him with such pity that it almost seems as if he is the one who died, and was placed in the grave moments ago.

"Oh John! She cries, and John continues to hold her quietly, as they walk away from the field.

He could feel his limbo shaking, the shield of numbness crashing quickly beneath him. And he realises why he is suddenly feeling so conscious of it, why Mrs Hudson just cried for him.

It was because home was not 221B Baker Street to him. Home was everything in 221B Baker Street: the odd experiments, the skull, the blood-boiling concertos at three in the morning, the making of tea for two at the most ungodly hour of the night, the amiable silence he and Sherlock sometimes shared when they sat to watch crap telly after a wild goose chase. Home was Sherlock Holmes.

And Sherlock is gone.

-o-


End file.
